Italy v Ireland in torrents of guff

Eamo was rather pointed at half time after George spent much of the first half trying to convince Jim Beglin that Pazzini had sharpened and swung his elbow with the malicious precision of a UFC champ in the flowers.

“That’s not a red card and anyone who says different doesn’t know what they are looking at.”

The only mystery was that Italy finished with anyone on the pitch at all.

George made up for his squeamishness with the first known use of this magnificent sentence in conjunction with a tale about the Hunts’ uncle winning the first series of Know Your Sport:

“It’s a nice little piece in the continuum of sporting lore.”

But after Robbie’s equaliser, George’s customary Swiss precision went out the window.

“Shades of that goal in Ibaraki, nine years ago, no eight years ago… seven years ago.”

Afterwards, Eamo was predictably delighted with a point and full of praise for the manager’s tactical switches:

“Taking off Kevin Doyle was lunatic asylum stuff.”

For some reason, much of Eamo’s recent imagery seems to follow a familiar theme. You might recall Real Madrid at Anfield wandering into “an alley with loads of drunks in it.” Last night Trap was like…

“… a drunken gambler in the casino throwing chips on the table.”

As usual Eamo dotted his analysis with apposite selections from his encyclopaedic knowledge if Irish footballing history:

“You’re talking about Niall Quinn’s goal in the European Championships in 1988. I was there.”

But union leaders will be asking questions after Giles trumped that with an astonishing departure from research protocol:

“I saw the video against Montenegro.”

For all his new-found work-rate however, a discussion of readers’ emails suggested Johnny might not yet be a great man for Web 2.0:

“If Robbie Keane had pulled that shot wide, the faxes coming in about Trapattoni would be unbelievable.”
As we know Ireland is already in the footballing doldrums because of “personal stereos and third level education.”

Will we ever make a World Cup again now that the shiftless youth of today are hooning around sending faxes?